“Every bit as bad. Love the kids; hate the textbook; and I go crazy trying to hold myself down to their speed. But it’s okay. Overall, its okay.”

“Except today?”

Neil told Tom about the incident with Jesse. Tom was not moved; he simply said, “I don’t get it. Why are you bothered by it? They’ll expel the little bastard and that’s that.”

“I don’t want him expelled.”

“For God’s sake, why not. He’ll just keep on being a pain. Be glad of the opportunity to get rid of him.”

Neil got up and said, “Freshen your drink?” He busied himself in the kitchen for a moment and on the way back he stopped off at his desk. He gave Tom his drink and laid a photo on the coffee table. “Look at that,” he said.

It was a snapshot Neil had made earlier in the year, inside his classroom with half a dozen kids clowning around between classes. Jesse was among them. It had been one of his good days; his face was alight with mischief, but there was no malice in it.

Tom looked at the kids soberly for a minute, and said, “God, they’re young!”

“Yes, they are. Young and vulnerable. Young enough so that the right person could keep them from going wrong. Too young to cast off just because they misbehave.”

Tom sat back for a time of thoughtful silence, then said, “It must be strange.”

Neil nodded. “For the first few weeks I was thrashing about, trying to find out what I was supposed to do, and how to go about doing it. Then came a period when I had my daily routine down, and as soon as I could relax a little, it got so boring you wouldn’t believe it. Parts of it still are. I dread coming home because I have to correct sixty-five awful papers every night. I have to drive myself to do them. They make high school papers look good by comparison.”

Tom shuddered in mock horror.

“Despite all that, I love what I am doing. Can you believe I’m saying that? It is because of the kids. I see two classes of kids, each for half a day. Its not like high school where they move in and out of your life on the hour. I actually have time to get to know them.”

The conversation drifted to other subjects.

Tom and Neil had been acquaintances and colleagues for three years before Neil’s scandal. In that time, Neil would not have called Tom a friend. They both taught literature, but theirs was a large high school and except for occasional meetings they both had to attend, their paths did not cross professionally. They were members of an informal group of teachers who met once a week to play basketball after school, and occasionally they shared a drink after a game. Beyond that, they had no basis for friendship.

Yet, when Alice Hamilton accused Neil of trading grades for sex, Tom was one of the first to defend him, and one of the few who never wavered in his loyalty. His position was, “What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty? And besides, I just don’t think Neil would do something like that.” He said it loud and often. It cost him some friendships and made him unpopular with the administration and the school board, but none of that stopped him. It was, Tom said frequently, not a matter of friendship, but of simple justice.

It may not have begun as an act of friendship, but Neil treasured it nonetheless.

“Neil,” Tom said, “I have some news you will be curious to hear.”

“Yes?”

“Actually it’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that Alice Hamilton is pregnant . . .” more tomorrow

“It’s all right, and it was cheap.”

“I don’t mean your apartment; I mean the town.”

“Ugly? I guess. I thought so at first, but I am getting used to it. Parts of it are okay, and the countryside is pretty.”

“This billiard table, pretty? You’ve got to be kidding.”

Neil grinned and admitted, “You have to look close to see it. But the foothills are pretty and the mountains are beautiful.”

“Do you get up there much?”

“Not at all since school started. They keep me pretty busy.” He stopped long enough to open the door to his apartment, then went on, “I spent the summer in the high Sierras.”

“Alone?”

Neil met his eyes and said, “Yes.”

“That must have been a rough time for you.”

“Damned rough. But let’s not talk about that.”

Tom shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He headed for the refrigerator and said over his shoulder, “Don’t you have anything to drink?”

“There should be a six pack of coke.”

“Beer?”

“No. I don’t keep it on hand.”

Tom pulled a pair of cokes out of the refrigerator and a tray of ice. He was sure enough of his welcome to make himself at home. Neil was surprised to find that that made him uncomfortable. It never had before. Tom took two glasses from the cabinet, added ice and poured them three-fourths full of coke. Then he crossed to his bag, pulled out a bottle, and held it up for Neil’s inspection. “Better than beer any day,” he said.

“None for me.”

“Come on!”

“No, Tom.”

Tom poured a liberal draft of rum into each glass and held one out to Neil. He said, “It’s almost vacation time. Let loose.”

Neil stood for a moment with the glass in his hand. He could smell it and it smelled good. Then he crossed to the sink and dumped liquid and ice in a single, decisive motion. Standing with his back to Tom, he rinsed out the glass and rebuilt it of ice and soft drink only. Before he turned around, he said softly, “Don’t push me on this, Tom.”

“All right.”

Neil crossed to the couch and motioned Tom to join him. Before he sat down, Tom said, “I’m sorry, Neil. I guess I’m pretty clumsy sometimes.”

“Forget it. You stood by me when almost no one else would. I won’t forget that. Ever. I’m not being unsociable, but when I drink, I dream of that bitch. And I don’t ever need to see her face again!”

Tom sat beside him and said, “Cheers!” Neil smiled and they touched glasses together. 

“Is your school out already?”

“Sure.”

“We have to go until Friday.”

“That’s stupid. It will cut things close for you. You are driving home for Christmas, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I wanted to get down here early enough to spend the evening and go on in the morning. I hope I’m not messing you up, but the chance came up suddenly and I didn’t have time to call ahead.”

“Of course not. You are welcome here any time. I don’t do much that you could interrupt; just work mostly.”

“How are you doing, really?” Tom asked.

“Really?” Neil paused. “Really, I am doing quite well. Much better than I had anticipated. I had a terrible day today, but that isn’t typical.”

“How do you like working with little kids?”

“I like it. There is a freshness about them that I haven’t experienced before. I never realized until this year how jaded high school students are.”

“How about teaching reading instead of literature?”

They looked at each other, and then they both laughed. Tom waved his hand and said, “Okay, dumb question. Let me ask instead, is it as bad as we imagined it would be?” more tomorrow

“I think so. At least most of them heard him. He whispered it, but there wasn’t another sound in the room at the time.”

“That tears it. The board will expel him this time.”

Neil shook his head. “I don’t want him expelled. I’m so mad now I could kill him, but I don’t want him expelled.”

“It’s out of  your hands. After last year, the board will have no patience with him. He has been in trouble with every teacher in the school this morning. I was coming to get him when I saw him in my office and came on out to see what he had done to you.”

“He came in hassling Lorraine, threw a paper wad at T. J., claimed he had not, slammed his desk deliberately to disrupt the class, all but called me a liar when I accused him, and then cussed me out on the way back to his desk.”

Bill shook his head in disgust. “Write it up,” he said. “Write it very carefully, and don’t leave anything out.” Then he added, “Why are you out here?”

“I wanted to cool off. I didn’t want the kids to see me this mad. I’m afraid I yelled pretty loud at Jesse.”

“Evelyn thought she heard you. Don’t worry about it; you should have heard the harangue Fiona gave him. And don’t worry about being angry in front of your students. They know you’re human; believe me, students always know all of our faults.”

Suddenly, Bill Campbell’s tone changed as he asked, “You didn’t hit him or push him around, did you?”

“I felt like strangling him, but I never touched him.”

“Good. Then there is no problem. Now get back to your classroom and act like nothing happened. Or let the kids write about how it all made them feel. Don’t let them get into a discussion, though; they might draw you into saying something you shouldn’t.”

Neil nodded. This was the second time Bill had backed him up in a crisis with Jesse. Neil was learning a great deal at Kiernan, and not the least of those lessons was that paranoia clouds your reason and distorts your ability to read others. He had misjudged Bill Campbell very badly at their first meeting.

# # #

A slow, sickening anger continued to dog Neil throughout the day, and he took it home with him. He was thankful to have the night to recuperate. He was tempted to stop for a bottle of Scotch, but he knew where that road would lead his mind.

He drove into the lot at his apartment and found a familiar green sedan in his space. For a moment he could not place it; it was too much out of context. Then Tom Lewis waved from where he was lounging in the driver’s seat and Neil was suddenly transported back to the world he had left seven months before.

Tom came over and shook his hand. There was a forced gaiety about him, masking a new reserve. Yet, only Tom had stood by him when the others had backed away. When even his lover had backed away.

“Hey, Neil, old buddy. How are you doing?”

“Okay, I guess. What are you doing here?”

“I’m on my way south to L. A. for the Christmas vacation.  I decided to drive so I could stop by and see how you were.”

Neil was moved. He gripped Tom’s hand tighter and said, “Thanks. That means a lot.”

Tom turned to his car and opened the trunk for a bag. He said over his shoulder, “Say, you really picked an ugly pace to live.” more tomorrow

Neil gripped the edge of his desk until the veins stood out on his forearms. He would not lose his temper — but, of course, he had already lost it. The other children had watched his conversation with Jesse with the intensity of spectators at a bullfight. They heard what Jesse muttered, and they flinched back from the flare of anger in Neil’s face.

Neil came slowly to his feet, towering over Jesse. The boy hunched down as if to protect himself from a blow, and cried out, “Don’t hit me! Please!”

That only made Neil angrier. He leaned forward until his face was within inches of Jesse’s and whispered with a barely controlled passion that shook them both, “Get out. Get out of my class. Get out of my sight. Get down to the office and stay there until I come for you!”

When Jesse’s head came up, his expression had regained its maliciousness, and he said, “No. I’m not going to the office.”

“Now!” Neil’s shout rattled the windows.

Jesse turned away slowly and left the room; every movement of his body suggested that he had gotten what he wanted.

Neil stood to watch him walk past the windows. Then he sat heavily back in his chair, shaking with unspent anger. The classroom was dead silent. He tried to speak but his voice choked in his throat. He stared at his littered desk top to shield his eyes from the other students. They did not deserve to sit in fear like this. They had done nothing wrong. But he couldn’t control his voice to tell them so. A minute passed. He felt the heavy pressure in his chest recede a bit. He cleared his throat and said, “I’m sorry I got so angry. It was not directed at you. Please try to relax.”

They did not relax, but they exchanged glances that were perfectly opaque to Neil. What they were thinking of him, of Jesse — of anything — was more than he could fathom.

He rose and said, “I’ll be just outside.”  Then he left the classroom. Outside, he leaned against the wall of the building. The children were all in their classes. The playground was deserted and peaceful. Neil breathed the clean, cool air in great gulps, trying to burn out the anger that filled him, but it did no good.

He had over-reacted, and he knew why. In the routine of everyday teaching, and in the warmth of a growing relationship with Carmen, his upper mind tended to forget Alice Hamilton’s accusation and his banishment from the world he had known and loved. The undermind forgot nothing; all that load of anger, hurt, and hatred lay ready for a trigger. Jesse had been that trigger.

Although, Neil admitted honestly, this incident would have infuriated him under the best of circumstances.

Neil was leaning against the wall next to the door to his classroom. His students could not see him, but he could hear them. The room was still mostly quiet, although here and there they were beginning to discuss what had happened in strained whispers.

Sweat was standing out on his face despite the cold, and hatred was in his heart. He had just about decided to send a student to get Bill Campbell, when the superintendent came out of his office and headed toward him. Bill did not look happy. He asked, “What’s going on?  Why are you out of your classroom?”

“I sent Jesse Herrera to you.”

“I saw him.”

“He called me a fucking bastard.”

Campbell frowned. “In front of the class?” he asked. Neil nodded. “They all heard him?” Campbell persisted. more Monday

Neil opened Tuck Everlasting to the place he had left off and began reading. Lorraine did not relax. That was Neil’s second warning that things were not going well, so he kept one eye on his book and the other eye on Jesse.

Jesse opened his desk and pulled out a paper, rolled it up and threw it across at T. J. Nelson. Neil stopped reading and looked at Jesse, then rolled his chair back to the chalkboard and wrote Jesse’s name there. He said, “First warning.”

“Why?” Jesse said in hurt tones.

“For throwing that paper wad at T. J.”

“I didn’t throw any paper wad!”

A weak or lazy teacher would have ignored the paper wad; a self-righteous one would have suspended the boy for implying that his teacher was lying. Neil had always tried to steer a middle course, so he said sternly, “I have eyes, Jesse. Don’t push your luck.”

Neil returned to his reading, but the mood was spoiled for him and for the class. Whatever he read to them now would have little effect. They were too busy thinking about Jesse.

Jesse opened his desk, took out another piece of paper, and slammed the lid down hard. Lorraine jumped and tried to slide still farther from him, but she was already on the edge of her chair.

Neil laid his book aside and the classroom became ominously silent.

Neil locked eyes with Jesse, but the boy would not look away. Very few of his students, here or in high school, had ever had the power to infuriate him, but this boy did. Neil took his time before responding, fighting down his anger and trying to be fair. 

Yet deep inside he knew he was not being fair. In order to overcome his own growing dislike of the boy, he was leaning over backward to avoid punishing him.

“Come here, Jesse.”

“Why?’

“Get up here!”

Even then, Jesse rose and walked to the front with deliberate, taunting slowness. Neil remained seated so that their eyes were on the same level and spoke with a calmness he did not feel. “You deliberately slammed your desk top in order to disrupt the class. What’s wrong with you today?”

Jesse shifted fluidly from defiance to a shuck-and-jive act. He lowered his head and looked hurt. He said contritely, “I didn’t mean to.”

Their relationship had gone too far for Neil to believe that, or for him to overlook so transparent a lie. He said, “You did mean to. You wanted everyone in the class to look at you — again. You wanted to be the center of attention. Well, you’ve got my attention now. This is your second warning, and if you get one more I’ll not only give you a detention, I’ll also send you home.”

“You hate me!”

“No, Jesse. If I hated you, you would be long gone by now. I am bending over backwards to avoid giving you detentions, but you aren’t helping me any.”

Jesse lowered his head still further and sounded still more pitiful when he said, “You do, too.”

Neil had to pause for a deep breath. Once Jesse’s false accusations would have filled him with guilt, but he was on to the game now and it only made him more angry. Yet he did not want to suspend the boy for something as subjective as attitude.

Neil kept his voice as calm as he could and said, “Sit down.”

As Jesse moved back toward his seat, he muttered, “Fucking bastard!”

Neil gripped the edge of his desk until the veins stood out on his forearms. He would not lose his temper — but, of course, he had already lost it. more tomorrow

Discipline

There was a poster on the wall in every classroom at Kiernan School which read, “Every student has the right to learn. Every teacher has the right to teach.”

Discipline at Kiernan School worked on the principle that the children could understand this concept if it was taught to them. By the sixth grade, most of them had accepted it. If they argued against reprimands or detentions, it was usually because they didn’t think a situation had been bad enough to warrant the punishment. Most of them accepted the underlying concept.

They accepted it but, being children, they often forgot it.

Neil had not used a formal discipline system in high school, but his students had not been eleven years old. By November, Neil had given out dozens of detentions. Tony Caraveli had gotten four of them, but he had also gotten the message. Jesse Herrera had gotten seven and it had done him no good at all.

In the last days before Christmas, Neil could have given twenty detentions, but in fact he gave none. The children’s minds were far afield, and he could not blame them for it.

Jesse Herrera was a different case. Whatever his problem was, Christmas had nothing to do with it.

Before he got to Neil’s room, Jesse was already in deep trouble. He tripped a teammate in soccer during P.E.. He got two warnings in Mrs. Clementi’s history class. He irritated Glen Ulrich so badly that he gave him a detention and set him outside his room for the last half of the math period. That seemed to undo what little self-control Jesse normally had. In science, he leaped up in the middle of Fiona’s presentation and flew around the room making jet plane sounds and slapping his classmates on the head as he went by. Fiona did not make much use of the detention system; she tended to scream instead. This time she yelled at Jesse for a solid five minutes in a voice that would have cracked polar ice.

It was just a matter of time before reports of his behavior trickled in to Bill Campbell. Each teacher had seen only a piece of the picture, but Bill would see it all, so Jesse’s fate was sealed before he ever came to Neil’s class. And if it had not already been sealed, it soon would have been.

Jesse came into class with a face that would have curdled milk and threw himself into his seat. When Lorraine Dixon sat down in her seat next to him, she eased over as far from him as she could get. This byplay was not lost on Neil. He said to Jesse, “What’s up, Jess? Problems?”

“Lorraine’s bugging me,” Jesse said petulantly.

Neil had a hard time not smiling. Lorraine looked helplessly at Neil, but she was too shy to say anything in her own defense. She did not need to; the idea of her bothering Jesse, instead of the reverse, was too absurd to take seriously.

Neil decided to lighten up the tension he felt in the air. He turned to Lorraine and said in mock seriousness, “Lorraine, leave that poor boy alone!” There was enough humor in his voice to leave no doubt he was joking. The class giggled; Lorraine turned pink and smiled.

The class was accustomed to Neil using humor to defuse situations. That should have been the end of it. This time, however, he had misjudged the depth of Jesse’s anger. more tomorrow

Neil was a little hurt by her response, until he saw moments later that she was wiping a tear from her eye. Sometimes — often — he didn’t know what to make of her.

“Carmen, I don’t want to give these presents at school. I don’t like to have the other kids feel that I’ve singled some of them out. Can you help me see that they get them?”

“Do you want to take them to their homes?”

“I’d rather stay behind the scenes. Could you see to it that they get them? Or I could take care of the little ones, but would you see to it that Rosa gets the jacket?”

“Why don’t you do it yourself?”

“I don’t want to intrude.”

She looked closely at him and said, “Are you sure that’s the reason?”

He shrugged.

“Have you been out at the apartments?”

“I drive by them every day, but I’ve never been in one of them.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve never had reason to go. I’ve never been in one of my rich kids’ homes, either.”

“Don’t you want to see how they live?”

“Yes,” Neil admitted, “I really do, but I don’t want to look like big bwana coming in to look at the native village.”

Carmen shook her head in mild dismay. “Neil,” she said, “I think you’re more ashamed of their poverty than they are.”

# # #

The next day a substitute taught while Neil attended the cooperative learning seminar. It was a pleasant surprise. After the fiasco in Oakland, Neil had expected a wasted day, but this was not so rarified or theoretical. It was a nuts and bolts approach that could be utilized immediately in the classroom. The presenters were convinced that cooperative learning was an answer to all the problems in education. They did not convince Neil that it was, but they convinced him to try it.

He went back to his apartment that night and made a list of his students, ranking them as high, medium, or low performers, then grouped them in fours with one high, one low, and two medium performers in each group. Then he rearranged them so that each group had a balance of Chicanos and Anglos, and of boys and girls. He made up a seating chart to show where his groups would be in the new room arrangement.

When he had finished it did not seem so different. He said aloud to the empty apartment, “I hope it works.”

He would find out in January.

# # #

Christmas inched closer. The children were ready for vacation and their attention wandered at any excuse. Juan Rogers went back to Mexico for the winter, and Joaquin Velasquez followed three days later. Attendance had never been great at Kiernan; by the week before Christmas, it was not uncommon for one fourth of the students to be gone on any given day. Neil preached the values of school attendance and all but tore his hair out in frustration; it did no good.

The children’s minds went on vacation a week before their bodies were allowed to follow.

Then, two days before vacation, Jesse Herrera went on a rampage.